The dawn was what woke up Edward Elric.

Not the dog, or his brother, or even his own much-downplayed excitement at going to the festival in town with Al on his arm. No, it was the sun, finding that one crack in the curtains that happened to shine right onto Ed's sleeping face.

The dog, brother, and excitement came right after that.

"I'm ready, already! Stop asking!"

"But you always forget things! Do you have the camera? Roy, stop barking! You're coming, too!"

"I told you to put him on a leash! Otherwise he's just gonna – ACK! No! NO! DOWN!"

They went down, all right, hard and noisily. The vase they'd gotten from Hughes for their fourth anniversary tipped off the side table and smashed to the floor, and suddenly Ed could hear Nina's laughter as Roy the dog tried to crush him under all his Great Pyrenees weight. He pushed uselessly at the mound of solid fur, cussing about the damage until Al came over to coax the animal off to the side.

"Sorry, Niisan! I've got him, you can get up."

Ed rolled over, sputtering, and pushed himself to his feet, crunching glass beneath government boots. "Damn it, he's broken something else! Why'd you have to get one so big!"

"It's not his fault, and the cat liked him!" Al hugged Roy around the neck, looking anything but sorry he had picked up the dog on the way home two months ago. "Just fix the vase, and let's get going! It's not like it's not been fixed before."

"That's not the point," Ed said crabbily, but there wasn't anything to argue about. The vase had been reconstructed no less than seventeen times, and it would be stupid to keep going on about one more paste job.

He pushed the pieces into a pile and pulled a stick of chalk from the side table. Alchemy was prevalent here in this world just as it was back home – it was how he'd managed to get Al back, after all – and he'd have the vase fixed in a jiffy.

Al smiled and Roy barked as the light flashed, bright and warm, and Ed closed his eyes against it.

---

It was beautiful. It was perfect.

And when he woke up, the sun coming through the spotted window and Alfons' cramped, shabby room pressing in on him, and the threadbare sheets scratching his skin, he didn't cry because he was disappointed. He cried with happiness, at the vision of the future he knew would come.

Because if he cried for what he didn't have, he would never stop.